Understanding the Meaning of Apodemeo in Greek

ἀποδημέω expresses the action of going abroad, describing a departure to “another country” or a “far country.” In the Gospels it appears in parables and narrative scenes where an owner or son leaves home, creating distance that shapes what follows.

Root and Related Words

ἀποδημέω is related to the adjective apodemos (ἀπόδημος), “absent” (Strong’s G590).

Occurrences

“Hear another parable. There was a man who was a master of a household, who planted a vineyard, set a hedge about it, dug a wine press in it, built a tower, leased it out to farmers, and went into another country.” (Matthew 21:33)

Here ἀποδημέω marks the decisive change from careful establishment to physical absence. The master’s prior actions are concrete and local—planting, fencing, digging, building, leasing—then the scene turns when he “went into another country.” The verb therefore functions as the hinge in the story: responsibility for what has been set up now lies with the tenant farmers during the owner’s time abroad.

“For it is like a man, going into another country, who called his own servants, and entrusted his goods to them.” (Matthew 25:14)

In this parable, ἀποδημέω frames the arrangement between the man and his servants. The departure is not an afterthought but part of the setup: as he goes abroad, he formally “called his own servants” and “entrusted his goods to them.” The verb places the ensuing stewardship under the condition of the master’s absence; the servants’ activity occurs while he is away in another country.

“To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one; to each according to his own ability. Then he went on his journey.” (Matthew 25:15)

This occurrence tightens the focus on timing. The distribution of “five talents… two… one,” matched “to each according to his own ability,” is immediately followed by the departure. ἀποδημέω here underscores sequence: the entrusting is completed, and only then does the man “went on his journey.” The verb thus reinforces that the servants’ management of the talents is meant to unfold during the period when the giver is abroad.

“He began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a pit for the wine press, built a tower, rented it out to a farmer, and went into another country.” (Mark 12:1)

As in Matthew’s vineyard parable, ἀποδημέω identifies the owner’s relocation away from the property after arranging everything needed for fruitfulness and protection. The repeated pattern—vineyard prepared, tenants installed, owner gone—gives the verb a structural role: it defines the interval when those left behind act without the owner present. The owner’s going abroad is part of the story’s logic, because the rented-out vineyard continues to operate while the planter is away.

“Not many days after, the younger son gathered all of this together and traveled into a far country. There he wasted his property with riotous living.” (Luke 15:13)

Here ἀποδημέω is not an owner leaving managers behind, but a son distancing himself from home. The text highlights deliberateness—“gathered all of this together”—and then the journey “into a far country.” The verb’s contribution is to place the subsequent squandering at a remove from the original setting: “There he wasted his property.” The going abroad provides the geographical and social separation within which the wasteful use of what he has gathered takes place.

“He began to tell the people this parable. “A man planted a vineyard, and rented it out to some farmers, and went into another country for a long time.” (Luke 20:9)

Luke’s version adds explicit duration: the man went into another country “for a long time.” ἀποδημέω therefore carries not only the fact of departure but the sustained character of absence in this telling. The vineyard is planted and rented out; then the owner’s long stay abroad creates an extended period in which the farmers occupy the working space of the vineyard while the planter is away from the land.

Sense and Usage

Across these passages, ἀποδημέω consistently signals movement away from one’s normal place into a different country, and the narrative weight often falls on what that distance produces. In the vineyard stories (Matthew 21:33; Mark 12:1; Luke 20:9), the verb separates ownership from daily control: the man has invested labor and resources—vineyard, hedge, wine press, tower—and has formally transferred use of the property by leasing or renting it out. When he goes abroad, the property remains, the contractual arrangement remains, and those on-site must act in the owner’s absence. The going abroad is therefore not merely travel; it is the condition that tests how others will handle what has been entrusted.

In the talents parable (Matthew 25:14–15), ἀποδημέω similarly defines the situation of entrusted responsibility. The man’s departure is paired with intentional delegation: he “entrusted his goods to them” and distributed talents “to each according to his own ability.” The verb helps the reader feel the interval between entrusting and any later accounting by emphasizing that the master is away, beyond immediate reach. It is the created distance that makes the servants’ initiative—or lack of it—meaningful within the story’s internal logic.

Luke 15:13 shows the same basic motion—going abroad—but in a personal rather than managerial setting. The son’s departure into “a far country” relocates him to a place where his property can be spent without the immediate presence of the household he left. The narrative uses the verb to move the action away from home and to frame “There he wasted his property with riotous living” as what occurs in the space opened up by his leaving.

One feature visible across the quotations is how ἀποδημέω often follows preparatory actions: planting and building, calling and entrusting, gathering and packing up. The verb then introduces a period in which the one who left is absent from the scene, while others remain on the stage acting with what they have been given or have taken with them.

Imagery

The repeated picture attached to ἀποδημέω is a departure that leaves something behind: a vineyard with its hedge and tower, goods entrusted to servants, or property carried off by a son. In these scenes, the journey “into another country” creates a physical gap that the stories use to highlight what happens when the departing person is no longer present in the place where the resources and responsibilities remain.

Sources: Lexical data from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance and the Translators Brief Lexicon of Extended Strongs for Greek (STEPBible, CC BY). Occurrence data from the Translators Amalgamated Greek New Testament (STEPBible, CC BY). Scripture quotations from the World English Bible (public domain).